OS 10.6 - SL and Leo dual boot issue

I successfully installed both Leopard (was there already) and Snow Leopard on my Macbook. Recently I got rid of Leopard and now I am stuck with all of this free space (about 60GB). Leopard was the top partition and SL was on the bottom... how can I get rid of that free space? I booted into the SL disk already but it wouldn't allow me to click the "erase free space" button. Help?

If it were reversed, (Snow Leopard partition first) I would suggest using the Disk Utility First Aid partitioning option. It would be a matter of just dragging the partition line to the end of the drive and making it one partition.

However, that's not going to work in your case and it may in fact lead to data loss. The best thing to do is make a Time Machine backup of your Snow Leopard installation. Then boot the machine with your Snow Leopard install DVD and erase the entire drive. Create one partition and format it as HFS+. Proceed with the installation of Snow Leopard. It will ask you if you wish to restore from backup. Reply yes and point it to your Time Machine backup.

It'll take awhile to do the restore but you should be back in business with the entire drive devoted to Snow Leopard.

As an alternative method to the above, you could always purchase the handy program "iPartition" which will non destructively consolidate the partitions for you. However, even with using iPartition, a backup is highly recommended.

If it were reversed, (Snow Leopard partition first) I would suggest using the Disk Utility First Aid partitioning option. It would be a matter of just dragging the partition line to the end of the drive and making it one partition.

However, that's not going to work in your case and it may in fact lead to data loss. The best thing to do is make a Time Machine backup of your Snow Leopard installation. Then boot the machine with your Snow Leopard install DVD and erase the entire drive. Create one partition and format it as HFS+. Proceed with the installation of Snow Leopard. It will ask you if you wish to restore from backup. Reply yes and point it to your Time Machine backup.

It'll take awhile to do the restore but you should be back in business with the entire drive devoted to Snow Leopard.

As an alternative method to the above, you could always purchase the handy program "iPartition" which will non destructively consolidate the partitions for you. However, even with using iPartition, a backup is highly recommended.

Regards.

Alright I bought iPartition (was quite expensive but I bet I will put it to good use over time) how should I go about putting the SL partition on top?

Alright I bought iPartition (was quite expensive but I bet I will put it to good use over time) how should I go about putting the SL partition on top?

Follow the directions in the "iPartition" help section. What you need to do is first remove the Leopard partition and then drag or expand the Snow Leopard partition to encompass the entire drive. The program will move the SL partition without data loss. But as I said in my other reply, make a backup!

Yes, by all means make a backup first. The good partitioning apps do so without problem over 90% of the time. But ... they do fail on occasion, whether from the drive already having problems or ??? You take a chance every time you play with partitions without a backup. One time is all it takes to bite you.

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